Credibly charged with making racist comments and plagiiarizing material for his radio program, Richard Land was forced to “retire” from his position as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in 2013. Prior to his departure the ERLC Board of Trustees bestowed the title of “President Emeritus of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission upon Land.
Richard Land also made a yearly presentation of an award titled “The Richard Land Award for Distinguished Service.”
In 2013, Russell Moore was appointed President of the ERLC to replace the outgoing Richard Land. Moore, now the official guardian of ethics for the members belonging to the 40,000 churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, apparently does not see any problem with Land’s title of President Emeritus, nor with presenting a yearly award for distinguished service named after a man who uttered racist comments about the Trayvon Martin tragedy and frequently plagiarized material he passed off as his own on his radio show.
What’s wrong with this picture? Southern Baptist members deserve to know.
As I covered in a previous article, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is a United Nations NGO. The ERLC is comprised of men intent on pushing a globalist agenda. Richard Land was President of the ERLC from 1988-2013. Land is a member of the globalist organization Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). While I am unsure if current ERLC President Russell Moore is a CFR member, he undoubtedly is sympathetic to globalist causes. He would not have been appointed to the job if he wasn’t.
Southern Baptist ERLC President Richard Land & Patrick Buchanan on Meet The Press.
Richard Land was born November 6, 1946, in Houston, TX. Educated at Princeton (A.B., 1969), New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (TH.M., 1972), and Oxford University (D.Phil., 1980), Land served as president of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission from 1988 to 2013.
While Land claims he retired from the ERLC in 2013, it appears he may not have had a choice in the matter. in April of 2012 Land was embroiled in charges of racism and plagiarism and undoubtedly the best resolution for all parties involved was for Richard Land to retire.
Source: Rightwingwatch.org
Source: Rightwingwatch.org
Except Land didn’t actually retire! He was apparently pushed out the ERLC door prior to being ready to call it a career. He “retired” from the ERLC and immediately transitioned into the job of President of Southern Evangelical Seminary! What’s a little racism and plagiarism among friends? In the upper echelon of the Southern Baptist corporate world friends always have your back, in this case ensuring a soft landing for Land as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary, no doubt pulling down a nice, six-figure salary to supplement his SBC retirement.
Source:The Christian Post
So who do those at the pinnacle of Southern Baptist ethics present their awards to? In 2012 Richard Land gave the Religious Liberty Award to Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
Who is Cardinal Dolan? Wikipedia states the following:
“In a 2003 letter to Joseph Ratzinger, requesting that the process be expedited for the laicization of priests accused of abuse who he believed were “remorseless and a serious risk to children”, Dolan wrote: “As victims organize and become more public, the potential for true scandal is very real.” In May 2012, the New York Times revealed that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, then headed by Dolan, had paid some abusive priests – although already dismissed from their priestly duties – up to $20,000 to leave the priesthood immediately rather than force the church to initiate time-consuming and expensive laicization proceedings against them. The archdiocese noted that the “unassignable priests” were still receiving full salaries and would continue to do so until they were formally laicized; and that the payouts were a “motivation” so that the priests would not contest being defrocked. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests sent a formal protest asking, “In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?” Dolan responded to accusations that he had given “payoffs” to protect accused priests as “false, preposterous, and unjust”.
In 2011, Dolan thanked Bill Donohue for a press release, reproduced on the Archdiocese of New York website, in which Donohue referred to the non-profit support group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests as a “phony victims’ group”.
In July 2013, documents made public during bankruptcy proceedings showed that Dolan had sought permission to move $57 million in church funds to protect the assets from victims of clerical abuse. In a letter to the Vatican requesting permission to move the funds, Dolan wrote, “By transferring these assets to the trust, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” Dolan had previously denied that he tried to conceal assets from child sex abuse victims claiming compensation calling the accusations “old and discredited” and “malarkey.” United States law forbids debtors transferring money in ways that protect some creditors against others. The Vatican approved the request in five weeks.“
Dolan doesn’t sound like a guy I would care to be honoring, but then I am not as enlightened as those vaunted ethicists of the ERLC. Southern Baptists may want to think about how their offerings are being spent the next time the offering plate is passed.
And then we have this demonstration of how the “good-ole-boy” network operates. First, in 2003, the ERLC Trustee Board kisses Land’s butt by renaming what was formerly called the “Distinguished Service Award” to the “Richard D. Land Distinguished Service Award.” Oh the hubris! Then Land gives the award to his friend from seminary days, Paige Patterson. Of course there is no one in the Southern Baptist Convention more worthy, more dedicated to Christ and to the people of the SBC than his good buddy, Paige.
Here is an illustration of how Paige Patterson cared for a Southern Baptist woman who was being abused by her husband. You can read the complete story at The Wartburg Watch.
“The Southern Baptist Outpost has an article with an excerpt from audio recordings and transcripts from a conference in 2000, in which Paige Patterson explains the counsel he gave one battered woman. Here’s the quote the Outpost posted:
“I had a woman who was in a church that I served, and she was being subject to some abuse, and I told her, I said, “All right, what I want you to do is, every evening I want you to get down by your bed just as he goes to sleep, get down by the bed, and when you think he’s just about asleep, you just pray and ask God to intervene, not out loud, quietly,” but I said, “You just pray there.” And I said, “Get ready because he may get a little more violent, you know, when he discovers this.” And sure enough, he did. She came to church one morning with both eyes black. And she was angry at me and at God and the world, for that matter. And she said, “I hope you’re happy.” And I said, “Yes ma’am, I am.” And I said, “I’m sorry about that, but I’m very happy.“
Source:SWBTS News Release
Things don’t look a whole lot better since Russell Moore has taken the reins of the ERLC. Here we see President Moore presenting Vice President Barrett Duke with the Richard Land Distinguished Service Award. Smiles all around as they keep it in the “family.”
Source: BPNewsnet
Finally we have this gem of a selection. Russell Moore goes on and on about how deserving Saeed Abedini is to receive the Richard Land Distinguished Service award. What he doesn’t know, and to be fair to him, what he can’t know, is that Abedini, at this time in an Iranian prison, has abused his wife.
Moore would probably like a do-over on this one, but it begs the question, shouldn’t you have at least a cursory knowledge of the recipient of a distinguished service award prior to issuing it?
My suggestion is consider abolishing the award. I consider it unbecoming of a Christian organization to heap such praise on a mere man. At the very least name the award after a more worthy individual. Surely it would be quite easy to find such a person. I would suggest looking at a pastor who has served a small congregation faithfully for 25 or 30 years, but then such a man would probably decline the honor.
Source: The Spiritual Sounding Board
More on Richard Land’s CFR membership:
Here is how Richard Land, SBC ERLC President Emeritus, treats women who have been abused by Southern Baptist preachers.
Editor’s Note: I noticed today (10-18-2016), that Russell Moore has blocked me from reading his Twitter account. This reaction is akin to a spoiled child taking his ball and heading home because he got his feelings hurt; it is typical of the manly-men of the gospelly celebrity club who fancy themselves “leaders.” It has zero impact on me and I am actually pleased to know my article has disturbed him. I wouldn’t be surprised if Moore also removes the embarrassing video above from the web, but we have already prepared for that event.
wpDiscuz